Modern Frauds And Con Games 155950224X, 9781559502245

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Modern Frauds and

Con Games by Tony Lesce

Loompanics Unlimited Port Townsend, Washington

Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained in this book. It is sold for entertainment purposes only. Be warned!

Modern Frauds and Con Games © 2002 by Tony Lesce All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in any form whatsoever without the prior written consent of the publisher. Reviews may quote brief passages without the written consent of the publisher as long as proper credit is given.

Published by: Loompanics Unlimited PO Box 1197 Port Townsend, WA 98368 Loompanics Unlimited is a division of Loompanics Enterprises, Inc. Phone: 360-385-2230 Fax: 360-385-7785 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.loompanics.com

Cover by Craig Howell

ISBN 1-55950-224-x Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 2002100650

Contents

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Chapter One VIC CIC ALLICE UIC Bite: eect a ee eee Eek te ee re 13

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Chapter Three ele Nene CAMS.

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Chapter Nine Miscellaneous) Frauds.c.4c

Chapter Ten PTOCCEUINIC WY OUTSOLE.

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Introduction

Introduction

The dawn of the new century has seen an explosion in fraud for several reasons. Perhaps the most important reason is that new technology, such as the Internet, has expanded the horizons for fraud perpetrators. The Internet allows remote control frauds because the fraud artist can be literally thousands of miles from his victims. The proliferation of telephone service and telemarketing has also promoted fraud. The cost to the telecommunications industry alone is about $4 billion per year, and the cost to consumers is much higher. Today, you can order goods by telephone with a credit card, and anyone who steals or duplicates your cards can order a lot of merchandise in your name. “Pay at the pump” with a credit card is a welcome timesaver, but makes it easy for a fraud artist because all he has to do is swipe the card through the card reader, without signing a slip or entering a PIN number. The anonymity works in favor of the fraud artist.

Modern Frauds and Con Games

2

Another reason is that some criminals are becoming smarter. The more perceptive ones realize that nonviolent crime is more profitable and carries less risk than violent crime. A low-grade stick-up artist collects perhaps $50 from a gas station or convenience store and risks at least five years behind bars. A bank robber can steal only a few thousand dollars in most cases, but a bank robber takes an appalling risk as well. From the moment he enters the bank, he’s on closed-circuit TV, and his image is recorded. Law enforcement officials make great efforts to apprehend bank robbers, especially if they harm anyone during the course of a robbery. Finally, the penalties are much more severe, partly because we punish violent crimes more heavily and partly because it’s possible to bring an array of charges against a robber. By contrast, the fraud artist consummates his crimes at a distance, greatly reducing the risk of identification

and apprehension. With imagination, a fraud artist can do very well for himself, especially if he makes good use of modern technology such as the Internet. Louis Freeh, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warned in November 1999, that the computer and the Internet have allowed criminals to

outmaneuver law enforcement because of the remote access they provide.! During the latter part of the 20 century, there was a study measuring the intelligence quotients of prison inmates. It turned out that the average IQ was 85, and this led some people to believe that criminals tended to be dull-witted thugs. Actually, 85 was the

Introduction

3

average IQ of criminals who had been apprehended, prosecuted,

and convicted, not criminals as a whole.

Obviously, many of the smarter ones remained at large. There’s no reason for believing that criminals are any more stupid than the general population. Successful criminals who run “crime families” or who practice profitable con games tend to be above average in intelligence. If they weren’t, they’d be behind bars. Another reason for the proliferation of fraud is that our law enforcement establishment is set up in a manner that is obsolete, concentrating on local crimes and

crimes

of violence.

In the United

States,

more

than in many other countries, law enforcement is fragmented, with literally thousands of agencies policing their limited jurisdictions. The few federal agencies are limited to enforcing a small array of crimes, such as counterfeiting and the espionage statutes. The multiplicity of agencies leads to duplication of efforts, such as the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, state police, county sheriff, and local police all enforcing the drug laws. Despite the occasional “area drug task force,” most efforts are not coordinated. Fraud artists take advantage of this weakness. They make use of mobility to stay a step or two ahead of the law. We’ll see examples of this again and again as we discuss different types of frauds, because people, including criminals, are more mobile today than ever before in history. People travel from one city to another, and one country to another, using many different forms of transportation. Fraud artists have a special incentive to relocate regularly, and the recent

Modern

Frauds and Con Games

4

downturn in air travel resulting from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is unlikely to cramp the mobility of scammers. The Postal Inspection Service is barely making a dent in the use of the mails for fraud. Instead, the Service seems to concentrate its efforts on prosecuting people who buy child pornography, who are vulner-

able because they're not savvy career criminals who know how to evade detection. Surveying the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Web site? showed that child pornography takes up much more space than fraud. For example, the Postal Inspection Service lists news articles, and for the month of August 2001, of the 40 articles listed, 30 dealt with child porn. The list of 22 wanted persons published on the Postal Inspectors’ Web site shows only one wanted for “mailing of obscene material.” Postal Inspectors are more adept in catching porn purveyors than fraud artists, apparently. This is probably because child porn is a “hot button” crime, and people get more excited about crimes against children than they do about crimes against property, such as fraud. Another reason is that people who buy kiddie porn are not hardened, street-smart professional criminals, and are not adept in avoiding apprehension. FBI figures show that “white collar crime,” another name

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Introduction

5

complete. Another estimate is $750 billion from iden-

tity theft alone. Fraud is the highest growth industry in the world, which is why it’s become a global trillion-dollar problem. One reason is that it’s low-risk compared to other crimes. Overall, the apprehension rate is about three percent and the conviction rate is about one percent.? By contrast, the apprehension rate for murder is about 67 percent, and for burglary between 13 and 15 percent, according to FBI figures. This is why criminals are turning to fraud as the wave of the future. Contributing to the low apprehension rates for various types of frauds are the scammers’ methods of operation. Those conducting outright, illegal frauds tend to be fast movers. They rely on distance and mobility to evade detection and subsequent prosecution. Fraud artists operate across state lines, and even across na-

tional boundaries. Telescammers set up a “boiler room” (a rented office with rented desks and banks of telephones), and a few weeks later are working in another state or country, thereby keeping a few jumps ahead of the law. As a rule, if you don’t detect the fraud within three or four months, recovering the costs is practically impossible.4 As scammers gained the insight that distance and mobility are the keys to avoiding apprehension, they refined their techniques to create distance between themselves and their victims, and to avoid being pinned down in one spot. The “rip and tear” technique is the extreme form. This involves conducting telescamming from multiple locations, such as pay phones, hotels, etc., and changing locations daily.

Modern Frauds and Con Games

6

Collecting the money also involves safeguards for the scammers. Instead of accepting checks or credit cards, they have their victims send money orders to a mail drop, or wire them the funds by wire transfer, such as Western Union. They also employ couriers to make the pick-ups, because the couriers cannot be directly connected to them. In some instances, they even conduct countersurveillance, to discover if their pickup points are under surveillance by law enforcement officers. As we'll see, law enforcement agencies are mostly living in the past, organized to cope with crime patterns of the last century. Victims have limited recourse because fraud artists are so remote, so hard to trace, and so mobile. And public education has not alerted people to the scope of the problem. We don’t even know the full extent of the problem, partly because of under reporting, and partly because of deficient record keeping. There is no central reporting bureau devoted to fraud statistics and analysis. Even if there were, the evidence shows it would not present a complete picture because many crimes are under reported. The Department of Justice’s National Victimization Survey shows that a significant percentage of street crimes are under reported, even serious ones. For example, only about half the rapes in this country come to the attention of the police. Non-violent crimes are reported even less frequently, for various reasons. Employers who discover

employees stealing from them typically do not prosecute because it takes up their valuable time, and they

Introduction

7

don’t want to spend many unproductive hours in a courtroom. Banks and insurance companies, especially, have great concern over their reputations, and want to avoid any publicity that might suggest that customers’ money isn’t safe with them. Many employers will seek restitution, and terminate the offender, but that’s as far as it goes. This reluctance to prosecute enables the embezzler to seek employment elsewhere and resume operations. Aggravating the problem is the reluctance of prosecutors to accept cases under a fixed dollar limit. Their resources are already stretched, and they don’t want to clog up their systems with many small cases that cost more to prosecute than the dollar amount stolen. There’s another reason as well. Many fraud victims are ashamed to admit that they’ve been suckers for a scam. It’s always a shock for victims to discover that they've been outwitted, and many fraud victims are afraid to step forward for fear of what other people will think of them. This reluctance to report fraud simply makes it easier for the scammers, because it keeps law enforcement officials unaware of how serious the problem truly is. My previous book, 21% Century Fraud, described many scams, but new ones cropped up from the moment the book appeared in print. The simple fact is that new and menacing techniques of fraud spring up almost every day. This volume describes other methods of fraud, many of which are not even illegal, but do involve deception for economic gain. Published studies of the effectiveness and safety of new pharmaceuticals are an excel-

Modern

Frauds and Con Games

8

lent case because drug companies have a vested interest in selling their products to the public, and people can be hurt by using ineffective or unsafe drugs. The rash of recent lawsuits concerned with pharmaceuticals shows this clearly. Fraud isn’t necessarily perpetrated by stereotypical organized crime figures with ethnic sounding names. As we'll see, many “respectable” companies use deceptive practices, and many have been convicted of defrauding the government and consumers. These racketeers include people we tend to respect and trust, such as doctors and dentists. Legitimate companies are often accessories to fraud. The telephone company, for example, rents lines to everyone, regardless of honesty, based only on their ability to pay. The telephone company’s security department concerns itself only with persons who try to rip off the telephone company, not those who use its lines to defraud other people. Indeed, fraud artists have long-distance contracts with various telephone companies to support their boiler room operations, and the telephone service providers earn a lot of money catering to criminals. Likewise the credit card providers. They recklessly send out “pre-approved” applications to everyone on their mailing lists, aware that some fraud artists raid mailboxes to snag those unsolicited applications and use them fraudulently. Granted, they'll lose some money to fraud artists, but consider that simply as the cost of doing business. They increase their interest

Introduction

9

rates to cover their loses, making the consumer pay for it in the end. There are, however, two basic human reasons why fraud prospers. One is greed. Some people are incredibly greedy, incredibly eager to “get rich quick,” to an extent that overpowers their critical judgment. They hear what they want to hear, and thereby fall victim to a canny fraud artist. The other reason is diametrically opposite: altruism. Many people are kind and generous, and thereby are potential targets for fraudulent charity scammers. It’s important to note that both legitimate charities and outright frauds take advantage of people’s altruism. Both exploit the kindness of people to take in billions of dollars a year. The legitimate charities at least pass on some of the money they collect to the people they’re purporting to help, although in many cases their “operating expenses” appear suspiciously high. The fake charities keep it all.

How to Use This Book Read this volume chapter by chapter, in sequence. The reason is that the earlier chapters lay the groundwork for later ones. There is also some overlap between chapters because fraud artists use different tactics for the same ends. For example, credit card scammers use the telephone, the U.S. mail, and the Internet to run their frauds. Some will begin by picking the victim’s pocket. Identity theft is a component of various other scams and rackets. One of the last

Modern

Frauds and Con Games

10

chapters, “Protecting Yourself,” discusses how to defend yourself against various scams explained in earlier chapters. This is the largest chapter in the book because this is a practical book, not an abstruse academic study. This chapter lays out steps you can take to reduce your vulnerability to fraud, and it’s full of practical information you can use. If your reading time is limited, and you feel you won't be able to get through this book within the next week or two, read “Protecting Yourself” first, and begin to follow the steps outlined in the chapter. The value of most precautions outlined will be self-evident, and you'll begin to get immediate benefit from this book. No book on fraud can be the final word. This is why the last chapter is a list of resources you can use to obtain up-to-date information on various new types of frauds. There are new wrinkles appearing literally every day, and it’s important to be aware of some of them. You can’t know them all. However, if you’re in a situation in which you think you might become the victim of a fraud, look it up in one of the Internet sources listed. This will get you a quicker answer than contacting your local law enforcement agency.

Notes 1.

Brunnstrom, David, “Computer Crime Outrunning Law Enforcement,” Reuters, November 8, 1999, ZD Net News.

Introduction

if

www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect oo Global Fraud Alert, www.globalfraudalert.com Daniels, Dave, Certified Communications Security Professional, Credit Card and Identity Fraud Scams, p. 6.

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Chapter Eight Airline Security Scams 93

Chapter Eight Airline Security Scams

Airline security began as a response to a rash of “skyjackings” during the 1960s, when some political skyjackers took over commercial aircraft and had their pilots fly them to Cuba and other places. The FAA and the airlines set up security checkpoints at the entrances to boarding gate concourses, and hired unarmed private security guard agencies on contract to staff the checkpoints. The checkpoints consisted of metal detectors and conveyor belts that passed all carry-on luggage through X-ray machines to detect weapons. Private security puts profits ahead of performance, and the companies involved hired low-level people at minimum wage or slightly above minimum, to put on a show of security for the public. Skyjackings abated, but probably not as a result of the increased security but because skyjacking had simply been a criminal fad that soon went out of style.

Modern Frauds and Con Games

94

During the following years, airline security became very perfunctory, actually a farce. Passengers complained that metal detectors slowed boarding by forcing them to stand in long lines, while they emptied their pockets of keys and coins that made the buzzers sound. Meanwhile, airline security failures became conspicuous. The loss of Pan American Flight 103 to a terrorist bomb showed that the security system was not only far from perfect, but very porous. The Gulf War brought a re-appraisal of airline security, and critics were quick to compare lax American security to that conducted by El Al, the Israeli airline. This was a poor comparison, because E] Al is a small airline, with about three dozen aircraft, while American carriers send thousands of flights aloft each day. One major American airline carries more passengers in one day than El Al carries in a year. A few “reforms” came into play. At some airports, curbside check-in of luggage stopped. Security guards turned up the sensitivity of their metal detectors. Research began on explosive detectors to warn of bombs placed in luggage. All of this was cosmetic, and proved to be ineffective on September 11, 2001, when a group of terrorists hijacked several airliners and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in suicide attacks that left about 3,000 people dead and two major New York landmarks piles of rubble. Over the years, private security operators at airports had been found negligent by Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) inspectors and fined millions of dollars. This did not help the problem, because the pri-

Chapter Eight Airline Security Scams o5

vate security companies paid the fines and continued business as usual. After the terrorist attacks, security at airports was supposedly beefed up but violations continued. This time, they drew national attention because of the seriousness of the situation. Reporters for The New York Daily News tested security at several airports on the East Coast, including Boston’s Logan Airport, where some of the September 11 skyjackers took off, and found that they were able to slip weapons by the security checkpoints. A man boarded an airliner in New Orleans carrying a pistol. In theory, airport security staffs were supposed to check luggage for explosives using high-tech explosive detectors, but in practice this did not work well. “Fewer than 10 percent of checked bags at the nation’s airports are inspected for bombs, and one overworked detection machine operator was found falling asleep on the job,” according to the Transportation Department’s Inspector General in testimony before Congress.! Meanwhile, the illusion of security continued. Armed National Guard troops were posted to guard airports, and Congress wrangled over whether to keep airport security guards as employees of private contractors or make them federal employees. A program of background checks on people hired by private security companies showed that some were convicted felons. Airline security is a sham. The security system is so porous that it’s ineffective. With thousands of flights

daily, it’s almost as difficult to make the airlines secure as it is to make subways safe. If you board an air-

Modern Frauds and Con Games

96

liner and arrive safely at your destination, it’s because nobody tried to skyjack it. Should you fly commercial airlines? The same factors that make it almost impossible to make airliners safe work to minimize the odds of your aircraft being skyjacked and destroyed. There are too many of them. It would take an army of terrorists to commandeer all of the airliners flying in one day. You have a better chance of being killed in a traffic accident than of being killed while flying.

Notes 1.

Abrams, Jim, Associated Press, “Lapses Continu-

ing In Baggage Security,” Albuquerque Journal, November 15, 2001, p. A8.

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds 97

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds

Information Fraud A group of scammers devised a new fraud based on current “politically correct” trends to defraud senior citizens into disclosing personal information that the scammers can use for identity theft. The group printed leaflets promising black seniors payment of $5,000 in “slave reparations” if they sent documentation of their status, including birth certificates, Social Security numbers, and other personal documents and

data, to a post office box in Washington, DC. The post office box was in the name of the TREA Senior Citizens League. Other leaflets promised money to “notch babies,” born between 1917 and 1926, falsely claiming they were eligible for payments of $5,000. The scam artists “piggybacked” on the name of a legitimate organization, The Retired Enlisted Association (TREA).!

A variation on this theme is when a fraud ring member works in a hotel or restaurant, and copies a

Modern

Frauds and Con Games

98

guest’s name, credit card number, and expiration date. A member of the ring telephones the victim later, posing as a credit card company employee, and asks him to confirm the transaction, which of course

the victim does. After having gained the victim’s confidence this way, the fraud artist obtains further information, which the ring uses to steal the victim’s identity.

Cross-Border Sweepstakes Fraud Phony sweepstakes have been with us for a long time, but a new development is the crossing of a national boundary. The new sweepstakes fraud artists have refined their scheme to maximize their returns while minimizing their risks. Some Americans have received notices informing them that they have won prizes in sweepstakes they never entered. They are told that, to collect their prizes, they must send a check for between $20 and $30 to a Canadian address, always a mail drop.? The notification letters go out from U.S. addresses,

probably to avoid suspicion by U.S. postal officials who might be scrutinizing mass mailings originating from out of the country. It’s also very easy to spread mass mailings around several local post offices to avoid creating an obvious pattern. Using a Canadian mail drop means that it’s harder to coordinate a multi-national investigation. Law enforcement across national boundaries is always very tenuous, and the investigations become very cumber-

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds 99

some.

This is true even

between

neighboring

coun-

tries, such as the United States and Canada, and few investigations result in prosecutions. This is why

these schemes include many variants, such as prizepromotion schemes, lottery frauds, etc. In many cases follow-up and prosecution of fraud artists across national borders is very slow and involved, despite extradition treaties, and the scammers get away scotfree.3

Lottery Scams Although federal laws prohibit importing lotteries or running them across state lines, lottery scammers ignore these. They contact potential victims by telephone, mail, or via the Internet. The scammers sell lottery tickets, at first for five or ten dollars, mean-

while compiling a list of receptive people. Later, telemarketers passing themselves off as lottery experts contact the most promising victims and ask them to invest substantial amounts. In reality, little or no money is invested because the telemarketers keep it for themselves. These fraud artists operate by effrontery, and in the rare instances when victims have learned that their number had won, they did not pay out any money, telling the victims that they had reinvested their winnings in more lottery tickets.4 At times, the lotteries seem like “Ponzi” schemes, in which collections from future victims are used to pay off early “winners.” It’s not too hard, and it’s a good investment, to convince the most gullible and affluent

Modern Frauds and Con Games

100

victims with small prizes that theyre on winning streaks and to encourage them to lay out even more money.

The “Gimme?” Gift Passing off junk as valuable items is common in fraud schemes. The fraud artist contacts potential victims by telephone and tells them that they have won a prize. He does not specify exactly the prize won, but reads from a list of prizes, most of which have substantial value. Prizes include an automobile, a check for thousands

of dollars,

and other desirable

items.

Sandwiched between them is a junk watch, or pair of watches, or cheap gold rings. This is the “gimme” gift. Once he has the victim hooked, the scammer tells him

that he must buy certain goods or send in a processing fee to collect his prize. Effrontery is the key to the scam, and if the victim asks which gift he has won, the fraud artist fobs him off with double-talk that informing him would be “collusion” and illegal. In practice, victims only receive the cheap items, never the valuable ones. This is why the scammers insist on payment in advance, before the victim sees the “gimme” gift and realizes its true value.®

Home Repair Scams These are not new, but they’ve had a revival during this new century. The basic scam works like this:

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds 101

The fraud artist goes door to door and tries to persuade homeowners that their roofs or driveways need repair. The con man then takes the money and leaves without performing the work, or he uses sub-standard materials and performs a faulty repair. There are variations on this theme, and one is to tell the homeowner that the “contractor” is working on another house down the street and has materials left over. The con man offers to do the job at a discount to avoid having to haul the surplus material back to his shop. Another con is to offer to do the work at a very attractive price, then charge more when the job is finished.® Some of these con artists are very hard to catch because they hit and run. They'll work an area on one

day, and the next day they’re in the next state. This is another instance of mobility enabling the con artists to remain a step ahead of law enforcement.

The Missing Pets Scam Owners of missing pets who put up posters offering rewards to those who return their pets may become victims of a hard-hearted scam. The fraud artist telephones and says he has the pet, and asks that the reward money be wired to him via Western Union. Of course, he does not have the pet, and once he gets the money, the pet owner never hears from him again. This scam has two characteristics that tip you off the caller is a phony. First, for one pretext or another, the caller cannot meet you in person to hand over your pet for the money. The second tip-off is that he

Modern

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wants you to send him the money via Western Union, because he can pick up the money anywhere in the country, preventing you from tracing him. Western Union does not require identification, unless the sender specifically requests it. When one victim did this, the scammer called back to say he had lost his wallet and asked that the victim change the order to “no identification required.”?

The Gerber Food Name Scam A group of fraud artists placed advertisements stating that the Gerber Baby Food Company has lost a class action lawsuit, and that the parents of children under a certain age should send copies of their children’s birth certificates and Social Security numbers to a certain address. This is a trick to obtain basic information for identity theft.®

The “809” Scam The “809” Scam, dating from the last decade, still

thrives because of a lack of uniform laws across national boundaries. It’s particularly serious in telecommunications, where each nation has its own procedures, and fraud artists are quick to take advantage of conditions that figuratively allow them to get away with murder. Area Code 809 is listed for the Caribbean, and you don’t have to dial a country code to reach it. The caller is unaware that he’s dialing outside the United States. Scam artists operating in the

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds 103

British Virgin Islands set up “pay per call” numbers there to receive calls from the United States. Local laws allow them to charge almost any amount they wish, and a typical rate is $25 per minute. The way they victimize you is to leave a message on your answering machine that a family member has been arrested or is ill. When you call the number given, you hear a recorded message designed to keep you on the line as long as possible. When you receive your phone bill, you'll see it contains an astronomical charge. You have no recourse, because you actually did place the call. Your local telephone company won’t want to get into the middle of this, stating that they're merely passing on billing from another company. There are variants on the “809” Scam that have sprung up during the last couple of years. Instead of a message on your answering machine, you may find a number beginning with “809” on your pager. You may also receive an e-mail directing you to phone an 809number because you’ve won a prize, or a company is offering you lucrative employment.

Pyramid Marketing Scams These are schemes that recruit people to become “sales managers” or “distributors,” promising rich rewards for little work. The victim has to invest his own money to buy stock and recruit other people to sell it, receiving a commission on the amount of product sold. The product may be genuine or a fraud itself, such as a miracle cure for baldness.

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Typically, the scammer will hold a high-pressure meeting or seminar attended by many prospective victims. The fraudster will razzle-dazzle his victims by showing charts purporting to list the amount of money it’s possible to earn by recruiting other people to do the actual selling. The fraud artist promises that the product is easy to sell, and that the victim will find it easy to recruit and supervise a sales staff with little effort. Sprinkled through the audience are shills to provide testimony of how easy the plan is, and how much money they have earned. Other shills go through the motions of enrolling themselves in the plan, because the scammer knows that most people are cautious and reluctant to be the first to sign up for the plan. The method of operation is to build up emotional momentum with these shills, and make it appear that people are enthusiastically signing up for the program.

Nigerian and Similar Frauds During the last several years we’ve seen the “Nigerian Scam” proliferate, with many people stripped of their liquid assets. The classic Nigerian fraud involves a letter or e-mail to a prospective victim, promising a quick and generous return if he provides the scammer with his bank account numbers. The scammer says he needs American bank accounts to allow him to transfer by wire several million dollars he scammed from the Nigerian Government. Once the scammer has the victim’s account number,

he “vacuum-cleans”

the ac-

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds 105

counts by means of bank drafts, and the money is out of the country, gone forever. There are many variations on this scam. Some fraud artists will send you letters, e-mails, or faxes purporting to come from an official of a foreign government. To support their claims, some scammers will include letters of recommendation from American companies. They may also ask you to provide, along with your account numbers, blank letterheads from your company, your telephone, fax, and e-mail numbers, and other information. The blank letterheads are to allow the scammers to forge recommendations from your company. As with many frauds, the perpetrators will

stress the “confidentiality” of the transaction, to deter you from going to the authorities or consulting your attorney.

The appeal can take different forms. One variant is to offer you a piece of a real estate venture. Another is offering you the opportunity to purchase bulk quantities of crude oil at very attractive prices. Other techniques are to tell you that the writer is the beneficiary of a will, or recipient of an award. Once you show interest, they sink in the hook and ask for front money so that you may collect your share of the proceeds. Your money is to pay for taxes, attorney fees, customs fees, bribes, etc. In each instance, the scammer assures you that this is a temporary problem, and that paying the fee will allow the deal to proceed. However, there’s always another problem arising that requires you to front more money until you get tired of laying out money for no visible return.

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At times, the scam can involve a threat to your freedom or even your life. You may receive an appeal to come to Nigeria to finish the deal. The scammer will tell you that you can enter the country without a visa, as he'll take care of bribing a Nigerian immigration official. As entering Nigeria without a visa is a serious offense, this can be used against you, as leverage to ensure your compliance with whatever demands the fraud artists make. If you refuse, your life may even be in danger, as one American was murdered in Lagos, Nigeria, a victim of this scam. Other foreign nationals who have traveled to Nigeria following up on these fraudulent offers have not been heard from since. A variant on this theme victimized the former Finance Director of the City of Clovis, New Mexico, who was approached by people claiming to be members of the Ugandan Rebel Army. They promised him a quick return for investing $4 million of city funds with them. The former city official was convicted of falsifying public documents in the fall of 2000, received a suspended sentence, moved to Arizona, and committed suicide with carbon monoxide in August, 2001.9 The U.S. Secret Service has established a special office within its Financial Crimes Division to cope with Nigerian scams. “Operation 4-1-9” involves liaison with Nigerian and other police agencies to try to stop the scams and to prosecute the scammers. The opera-

tion gets its name from the section of the Nigerian Penal Code dealing with frauds. The Secret Service also has several of its officers in Lagos, Nigeria, to col-

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laborate with Nigerian officials in prosecuting scams. However, this is only a drop in the bucket for a very simple reason. “Nigerian” scams may have originated in Nigeria, but they’ve spread to other countries. Scammers using variations on the Nigerian themes are now working their schemes from several other locales, and catching up to them is difficult because they change locations often. There’s an additional reason why Nigerian-type frauds have proliferated. Typically, law enforcement authorities are concerned with crimes in their own jurisdictions, not others, and even less concerned with

crimes against people of other countries. The police of Nigeria will be less than enthusiastic about investigating a fraud ring that targets Americans. The parent body, the national government, of an underdeveloped country can easily turn a blind eye to a criminal ring that brings sorely needed money into the local economy. Until there is a world police force, there will be little hope of combating fraud across national boundaries.

Work at Home Work-at-home

schemes

are

not

new,

but

some

scammers are using the telephone and the Internet to attract victims. These scammers promise big bucks for little effort in a variety of businesses. They also assure their victims that success is almost guaranteed. The plans usually involve setting up a network of vending

machines,

computer

games,

or

recruiting

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other salespeople. If recruiting other salespersons is part of the plan, it’s a pyramid selling scheme, as discussed above. All require that the victim purchase equipment or stock from the scammer.!°

Stock and Bond Frauds A classic type of fraud still being perpetrated because prosecution is so difficult is stock analysts’ benefiting financially from touting stocks. This is a variation of the “pump and dump” technique used by stock fraudsters for years. The main differences are that the perpetrators are employees of “respectable” firms, and the stocks and bonds they tout are “reputable,” not junk. A stock analyst decides to invest in a particular issue he thinks is worthwhile. After sinking his money into it he advises his clients that it’s a good buy, and when they buy shares the purchases drive the price up. Once the analyst feels it has gone as far as it’s go-

ing to go, he sells his shares, thereby profiting from the transaction. What’s wrong with this picture? The analyst is using other people’s money to drive up the price of the

shares. However, as many have discovered, proving intent is very, very difficult. A federal judge recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by investors against an analyst working for Morgan Stanley, showing that winning a case is not the same thing as the feeling that you've been victimized.!!

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There has been a rash of lawsuits recently by investors who had allegedly lost millions of dollars by following the advice of stock analysts who did not reveal that they had conflicts of interest. One reason is that the stock market has taken a downturn. Investments appeared rosy when the market was bullish, when almost anyone with money to invest saw a profit, and predicting a stock’s rise was almost a no-brainer. Today, though, stocks that are basically feeble or overvalued/are crashing, and taking investors with them. Some fraud artists are pitching worthless stocks by phone, using a variation of the Initial Public Offering theme. An Initial Public Offering, or IPO, is the first time a company’s stock is put on the market. The company establishes a selling price, and from there the stock may take off and appreciate in value on the market, or it may decline in value or even crash. IPOs are inherently risky because the stocks have no track record. The pre-IPO fraud is slightly different. The fraud artist may be a telemarketer, or operate by e-mail or on the Internet. He offers the victim a “pre-IPO” deal, an opportunity to buy shares before they go on the market. The victims are not aware that there’s no guarantee of an initial public offering, and that the stock theyre contemplating buying may never go on the market. Although the scammer offers the victims both low risk and high return, the offer is bogus.12

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Unclaimed Estates At times, people we normally think of as being above suspicion turn into scammers. A former minister in Florida pleaded guilty to defrauding the Florida Department of Banking and Finance of over $1 million. The first step in the fraud was to buy a state database listing unclaimed estate property. This was openly available over the Internet and on a CD-ROM. He then used faked identities to claim some of these estates from the state. According to U.S. Attorney Thomas F. Kirwin, the scammer then used the money to buy himself a 6,625 square foot house, motor vehicles, other property, and computers. He also established several bank accounts with the proceeds of the scam.}8

Religion-Based Scams These tend to be aimed at older people, and use their religious beliefs to take money from them. Many people think that any offer associated with a religion must be good, and scammers take advantage of this naive belief. Scam operators tout various investment schemes, such as precious metal and diamond mines in Africa, claiming that the investors will receive a generous return and that part of the profits will go for a worthy cause, such as a non-existent church. Another religion-based fraud is perpetrated by fly-bynight “clergymen” who claim to be raising money to build their churches.!4

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Recovery Room Frauds Adding insult to injury is a sophisticated two-tiered fraud practiced by some scammers. After fleecing their victims with one type of scam, they pass their names to another group, a member of which contacts the victim and claims to be associated with a law enforcement agency. The “agency” may be local, state, or federal, and may be a police agency or a prosecutor’s office. The pitch is that the “agent” will attempt to recover some of the funds lost by the victim. Because the “agent” is working in collusion with the original scammers, he is well informed regarding the type of scheme used and the amount of money lost. This helps convince a credulous victim that the “agent” really is associated with law enforcement. The “agent” then sinks in his hook, informing the victim that there is an up-front fee involved because there is a court filing fee and their funds must be released by the court. Using the “recovery room” scam has two benefits for the bold scammer. It allows him to steal yet more money from his victims, and it can delay the reporting of the scam to the real authorities if the victim believes that something is already being done.15

Fake Experts in the Media It’s become a feature of American life that the news media aren’t here to bring us an unbiased view of national and world events, as we’d learned in our civics

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classes. Today, anyone who doesn’t have his head in the sand acknowledges that the real purpose of newspapers, radio news shows, and TV news shows is to capture audiences for advertisers. The neologism “info-tainment” summarizes it well. One aspect of info-tainment is to describe and explain an increasingly complex and bewildering world for audiences. This taxes the skills of the “talking heads” on the regular news staff because of their limited knowledge. In certain cases, they bring in outside help. We have seen how the electronic media do this regularly, with guest speakers, and the TV news are the worst offenders. It’s very understandable when a TV station puts a medical doctor on screen to describe and explain a new technique of endoscopic surgery, or a new antidepressant drug. In the same manner, an attorney might appear to describe the implications of a new law or court decision. However, experts aren’t always

that well qualified. A recent example shows what can happen, and why it’s important for you to be skeptical about the views of some of TV’s “experts.” The new war against terrorism brought an unprecedented crop of specialists and “experts” to comment on terrorism, national security, and the military actions in Afghanistan. Typically, these were retired military officers who answered questions from the talking heads. A few were college professors or employees of “think tanks” dealing with security topics. Some were asked for their views on terrorism and anthrax, while others were asked to explain the United State’s mili-

Chapter Nine Miscellaneous Frauds i Wakes

tary goals or bombing campaign. In some cases, the talking heads even asked them to predict what would happen next. Retired military officers aren’t privy to current war plans. Even if they were, they would not disclose them, as they’d face prosecution for revealing military secrets. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld berated some people in the government (mainly members of Congress) for talking out of turn and disclosing classified information. When the topic turned to terrorism, the experts showed themselves as very uninformed, and they merely repeated stale clichés regarding terrorism. The reason is very clear. Retired military officers are experts on their former services, not terrorism. Practically all of them had never even seen a terrorist. This is why it’s important to be skeptical when faced by one of TV’s “experts.”

Fraud Marches On You and many other people are besieged daily by fraud artists. Under this continuous assault, is there

anything you can do to protect yourself? The answer is “YES!” While there is no technique or combination of techniques that offers 100 percent protection, you can make it very hard for a fraudster to take advantage of you. That is the subject of the rest of this book. There are steps you can take, individually and collectively, to enhance your resistance to fraud, and there are

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steps your government the international level.

can take to combat fraud on

Notes . Sprengelmeyer, Out of Personal July 10, 2001.

M.

E., “Senior

Data,” Rocky

Citizens

Duped

Mountain

News,

http://www.bbb.org/alerts/sweepstakes.asp http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/telemarketing/schemes.htm Ibid. Ibid. Fleck, Caroline, “Buyer Beware: Scams Proliferating,” AARP Bulletin, October, 2001, p. 3.

Morrison, Keith, “Double Tragedy for Pet Owners,’ NBC News, July 20, 2001. Verizon Phone Fraud Alliance, “Gerber Food Scam: True Name Fraud.” . “Ex-Clovis Director Commits Suicide,” Albuquerque Journal, August 17, 2001, p. B38. . http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/telemarketing/schemes.htm . Gordon, Marcy, Associated Press, “Deception Hard Thing to Prove,” Albuquerque Journal, Sunday, September 2, 2001, p. Cl. 12. Fleck, Caroline, “Buyer Beware: Scams Proliferating,” AARP Bulletin, October, 2001, p. 3. 13. Associated Press, “Ex-Minister Admits to Fraud Counts,” Albuquerque Journal, September 28, 2001; peba:

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115

14.

Fleck, Caroline, “Buyer Beware:

Scams Prolifer-

ating,” AARP Bulletin, October, 2001, p. 3.

15.

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Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself 117

Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself

From what we've seen, fraud artists are getting away with huge amounts of money, without facing a correspondingly high risk of apprehension or prosecution. Law enforcement is largely ineffective when it comes to fraud, because fraud artists are at least as smart as the cops, and know how to take advantage of weaknesses in the system. Most police departments are unprepared to combat fraud. They can barely cope with street crime while an inept criminal justice system sabotages what the cops accomplish. No doubt, you’ve heard the cliché: “Send for a cop, then send for a pizza. See which comes first.” Unfortunately, this isn’t a myth. It’s true in many parts of the country. It’s worse when it comes to fraud. Often, the cops don’t come at all. If you receive a suspicious telephone call from a fraud artist, don’t waste your time calling the police to ask them to trace the call. You'll just ex-

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perience a run-around while the fraudster moves on to other victims. If the cops can’t protect you, then who can? It comes down to self-reliance. You are the first line of defense against fraud, just as you're your own first line of defense against street crime.

A cliché is that some of the sharpest minds in the world are working on the problem of separating you from your money. The smartest of these are concentrating on doing it by stealth and deceit, not by force. This is why you must remain vigilant in your daily life. You must also know a few basic survival tactics.

Security Let’s first look at some very basic precautions that many people neglect. One is to keep your wallet in a safe place, such as an inside pocket that you can button. This is especially true if youre female. Don’t carry your wallet full of cash and credit cards, and perhaps your checkbook, in your purse. Purses are too easy to snatch. A thug can snatch your purse and be off running before you can react. Also, never leave your wallet, purse, checkbook, or cellular phone in your car. You might think you’re safe by leaving them under the seat, but someone may be watching and break a window to steal them later. Also, if your car gets stolen, your valuables get stolen with it. Another basic safety tactic is never to write your PIN number on your credit card or ATM card. Don’t

Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself 119

even write them on a slip of paper in your wallet. If you do, you make it very easy for anyone who steals or finds the cards if you lose them. Memorize the numbers. This isn’t hard to do, if you do it correctly. Don’t use your house number, birth date or any number linked to you as a PIN number. Instead, use a number you know, but that has no connection to you. The last four digits of a friend’s telephone number are good to use. So is your friend’s house number. Another might be your supervisor’s office number or telephone extension. No scammer can possibly know all the people you know, and know all of their house or telephone numbers. Even if he did, finding the right one would be a mind-boggling task. At home, keep your blank check pads in a safe place. If you have a safe, use it. If not, choose a hiding place that would take a thorough search to find. There’s no perfect defense against burglary, but you don’t have to make it easy for a burglar. Be especially careful if you live with roommates. They may not be what they seem, especially if you don’t bother to check them out first. One man found that a former roommate had purloined a check from the bottom of his blank check pad, and used it to clean out his account.

Be Suspicious It’s smart to be suspicious of someone making you an offer or urging you to buy or invest in something. Always “consider the source.” As noted above, anony-

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mous messages on Internet message boards or chat rooms are always suspect because you don’t know the source. These messages are usually posted by shills. In the same manner, be careful when someone solicits contributions for charities with which you’re not familiar, or with names that sound like real ones. Check it out before sending any money. However, being suspicious does not mean going overboard and becoming a paranoid, distrusting everybody you meet. A healthy degree of suspicion is important for defense against fraud, and it should begin with asking, “What does he get out of this?” When dealing with a salesman, the answer is obvious. The salesman is seeking to earn a commission. However, it’s important to note that some people earning their livings this way don’t call themselves “salesmen.” Your stockbroker, for example, is actually a salesman, not a “financial advisor,” because he earns a commission from every transaction. This is a strong incentive for him to persuade you to buy and sell securities. Believe it or not, your health care provider is also a salesman. He stands to earn a fee for every treatment. This is a compelling reason to seek a second opinion if a doctor or a dentist proposes an expensive course of treatment.

One woman suffering from spasms of her right eyelid found this out the easy way. The doctor she consulted suggested she have expensive plastic surgery to correct the condition. This was a serious prospect, because of the risks associated with any surgery, and

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she hesitated to accept the doctor’s suggestion. In a few weeks, the condition cleared up by itself. She still doesn’t know what had caused the condition, but her

reluctance to accept this expensive “treatment” saved her a lot of money, as well as sparing her the surgical risk. Regarding health care, be very careful about giving blanket permission to harvest your body organs. Scan very carefully any health care organization contract you sign, and be very careful regarding what you sign before going in for surgery. Likewise, do not check off the “organ donor” box on your driver’s license application. While most doctors are ethical, you may have the misfortune to encounter one tempted to make some easy bucks by declaring you dead and harvesting your organs.

Read the Fine Print Both legitimate businesses and scammers use fine print to fool people. A grocery ad will have a “SALE” price in large numbers, but the fine print below the price imposes a condition such as “Limit 4,” “Thursdays only,” or “Only to customers who buy $25 or more.” The danger to you is that this tactic is perfectly legal, and if you get tricked, you have no recourse. Be especially wary of offers that come in the mail. Credit card offers usually list a very attractive rate, but when you read the fine print you find that this is

only for an initial period of a few months and that a higher rate then applies. You might be surprised to

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find that the rate is higher than that on your present credit card. If you receive an offer to enter a contest, read everything on the form before you sign it. You may discover that the “winner” has to pay a “service charge” or “processing fee.” Be especially careful if you receive a check made out to you. It might be from your credit card provider, thanking you for being a valued customer, but scan it carefully. Always scan the back carefully for fine print saying that you’re signing up for a service, magazine subscription, etc. One such

check for $2.50 received by the author had printed in fine type on the front: “Cashing this check activates a risk-free 3-month membership in the Buyer’s Advantage program with additional money-back privileges.” There was no information on the check regarding how much membership would cost after the free offer expired. However, the accompanying letter stated that the annual fee would be $69.99 and would be automatically extended after the first year and billed to the credit card account. Very fine print at the bottom of the cover letter stated that motorized vehicles, food and beverages, jewelry, weapons, computer software, and many other items were excluded from the plan. The above offer is not illegal, not technically a fraud, but it is a trap for anyone who doesn’t read the fine print. Nobody gives away free money, and there’s always a catch.

Another offer came from Fleet Instant Advantage Credit Card Services in the form of a check for $2,635.00. The accompanying letter reassured the

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reader that the check was to deposit it immediately. activate a Visa Platinum ever, it was important to the fine print on the back

real, and urged the reader Endorsing the check would credit card account. Howread the entire letter and carefully to understand the

terms.

The check wasn’t a gift, but a loan, and the company expected repayment at an interest rate of 14.99 percent a year. The fine print on the back stated that there would be no grace period before interest charges would apply. In other words, there’d be a finance charge even if the client were to repay the entire loan upon receiving his first bill. If he did not, the minimum payment on this loan was $62.67 per month, over a term of 60 months. Simple arithmetic showed that anyone who endorsed and deposited this check

would pay a total of $3,760.20 for the $2,645.00 loan if he took the entire 60 months to pay it back. What’s wrong with this picture? There’s nothing illegal about it, as the letter with the check clearly states the terms, that the check is not a gift but merely a loan. The problem comes if someone steals the mail. The check is real, and it’s negotiable. Although the check is marked “FOR DEPOSIT ONLY” a scam artist can open a bank account, deposit the check, and then work the scam one of two ways. He can receive a Visa Platinum card, if he has Fleet, send it to another address, enabling him to milk his victim’s credit for many thousands of dollars. Alternately, the scammer could choose to take the money and run, withdrawing the balance a few days after

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depositing the check. The victim would still be stuck with the loan. The National Consumers League issued a warning about unexpected charges attached to buyers club memberships. Many of these are pitched by telemarketers, and these dishonest salespersons fail to tell victims that there is a charge after the introductory period. Other victims find themselves paying for memberships to clubs they’d never agreed to join. Yet another way victims get suckered in is by buying items advertised on television. Fine print on the screen tells them that the purchase automatically enrolls them in a club. Other victims said they’d received “welcome packets” from clubs even though they'd never applied for membership. When they tried to telephone to cancel these “memberships,” they found that getting through was extraordinarily difficult.1 Another

instance turned up in New Mexico, when Qwest, the area’s telephone company, began a telemarketing effort to sell its wireless telephone service. Customers began complaining that the offer was misleading. Ken Graves, of the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, stated that “negative option contracts” are a growing problem. A negative option contract isn’t new. Actually, this is the way many book and music clubs operate. You have to notify the company that you don’t want it, or they ship an item to you. Each sale period you receive a notice that if you do not return the card (using your

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own stamp) within a certain time, you'll receive that month’s book or tape. In the case of the Qwest offer, the sales pitch was for a 30-day free trial. What the telephone salesperson didn’t state, and the printed information provided in fine print, was that it was up to the customer to tell the company to cancel, or the customer would be committed to a year’s service at $29.95 a month.2 Complicating the problem for the customer was that trying te contact Qwest via telephone meant a lot of waiting. One customer complained that she spent 90 minutes, mostly on “hold.” Another difficulty was that the customer had to return the wireless phone within the specified period, but the phone arrived in a box with no return address.?

Coping With Telemarketers Unless you're very isolated, you've gotten calls at inconvenient times from telephone salespeople. They tend to phone around dinnertime, because they know you're most likely to be at home then. Chances are they’re using a computer programmed for sequential dialing, and dialing several numbers at once to save the telemarketer’s time. If you receive “hang-up” calls, especially around dinner, it’s almost surely a telemarketer, not a personal enemy trying to give you a hard time. One counter to telemarketing calls is to tell each caller to place you on his “Do Not Call” list. Federal law provides penalties for telemarketers who continue

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to call after being told this. In theory, you can file a civil suit against such a telemarketer. In practice, it’s very hard to do so. You have to document your complaint, and unless you log every call you receive, noting the date, time, and caller, you won’t get far. Documenting calls is very difficult. Practically all telemarketers use PBX switchboards or other electronic trickery to prevent their numbers from registering on your Caller ID. A telemarketer can use a different name every week. This makes gathering evidence that will stand up in court very difficult. The telemarketing company simply denies it made the calls, and you can’t prove that their personnel did. Another approach is to contact the Direct Marketing Association and request to be removed from lists its members use. The number to call is: New York: (212) 768-7277 Washington: (202) 955-5030

This again is only a partial solution. Telemarketers come and go, and when new ones spring up, they will call you. Another point is that fraud artists don’t belong to this association, and call whom they please. At the most basic level, protecting yourself from telemarketers is very simple: Never talk to them. There are several reasons for this. One is that it’s a total waste of time. You have better things to do than explaining to a telephone salesperson why you don’t want to buy. In any event, you don’t owe a junk caller

any explanation. Another is that if ever you buy anything from a telemarketer, your name and number will go on a premium “sucker” list and you'll be bom-

Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself 17,

barded with even more calls. Be sure of one thing: They don’t go away if you buy. You cannot appease them. It’s hard to exaggerate this point. Telemarketers, both legitimate ones and outright fraud artists, make money any way they can. One way is to sell lists of people who have bought from them, on the wellestablished premise that if a person’s bought once, he'll buy again. Of course, they don’t call these “sucker lists,” but “lead lists,” and the people on these are called “mooches,” salesmen’s slang for easy prey. In fact, there are list brokers who buy and sell lead lists to telemarketers and fraud artists. This shows that, in many ways, both honest and dishonest telemarketers operate in a similar manner. Countering junk callers requires defense in depth, using several defensive layers. First is a Caller ID. Make it your practice never to pick up the phone if you don’t know the caller. Don’t let your curiosity make you pick up a “Blocked Call” or one that purports to come from “Out of Area.” There’s a very good reason for not talking with junk callers, apart from the waste of your time. Some are totally unscrupulous. Other telephone junk callers are under such tremendous pressure to make their quotas that they will falsely write up your order. For example, some of the callers who try to get you to subscribe to their long-distance telephone services. Telemarketers will also make misleading statements to entice a subscriber to make the change. The New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission heard testimony of such abuses from telephone subscribers. It

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also heard testimony from a former employee of one of the long-distance companies that he and his fellow telemarketers “preyed on the elderly and made misleading statements to customers to meet highpressure sales goals.”4 It’s become almost a cliché that scammers prey on the elderly. Is it because they’re stupid? Probably not, as elderly people tend to be vulnerable for other reasons. First, theyre home a lot more than people of working age, and therefore easier to reach by telephone. They also have savings and property, real assets that make attractive targets for fraud artists. Another reason is that theyre more likely to listen patiently while the scammers make their pitches. They also may be less suspicious. Finally, many elderly people welcome telephone calls because they’re lonely, and even sales calls help fill the empty hours. Whatever the reasons, people over age 62 make up the majority of victims. Next you should get an answering machine so that you don’t miss important calls, yet can turn away junk calls. A legitimate caller will leave a message. A caller who hangs up the moment your recorded message cuts In is surely a junk caller. An answering machine also removes the urgency involved in answering the telephone. If you’re in the shower, washing dishes, or otherwise occupied, you don’t have to drop everything to answer the damned phone, even if the caller is a friend. Finish your task and call the person back. An answering machine can also provide the evidence to enable you to obtain justice. One rural New

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Mexico couple took a call from one of these telemarketers, who was operating out of a call center in Kansas. When they refused to change their service, the telemarketer called again, allegedly leaving a nasty, profane, and threatening message on their answering machine. When the husband called the telemarketer’s supervisor later that night, the supervisor denied that the incident had happened, until he heard the tape played. The couple hired a Santa Fe attorney and filed suit against the company.® Finally, you can counterattack if you have the time. If, for example, you’re on the toilet and have a phone in the bathroom, you have a few minutes to play with a telepest and waste his most priceless commodity, time. However, make sure you tape the call, to have a record of the conversation in case the telejunker later claims you bought whatever he’s selling. If a junk caller rings, there are several tactics you can employ to keep him tied up. However, don’t use obsolete tactics. Asking the caller to hold because there’s someone at your door is an old technique, and they’re all aware of it. Likewise for telling him that you have someone on your other line. If you try it, you'll find that he’s hung up when you return. To keep him on the line, you have to use a “hook,” something to capture his interest. Pretend to be interested in his offer. Listen, and ask questions. Pretend to be a little stupid, ask him for information he has already given you, and make him repeat himself a few times. Then tell him that you have to ask your spouse, and ask if he can hold for a minute. Put the phone down and continue reading the

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newspaper, and after a couple of minutes pick up the phone and tell him that your spouse said “no.” If another family member is home, you can use the tag-team method on the caller. Tell him that his offer sounds very interesting, and that you’d like to have him run it by your spouse, or father, etc. The other family member gets on the line and puts the salesman through the same time-consuming routine, asking repetitious questions, before handing the phone back to you. Then you tell him that you want time to think about it. At this point, he may say that he’ll phone you again the following day. Of course, the next day you simply don’t answer any unidentified calls. Chances are that he'll try you several times before giving up, thereby wasting even more valuable time. Time is money to them, and by wasting their time you're hitting them right where they live. Don’t feel guilty about treating telephone pests this way. As we've seen, they have no scruples at all, and don’t mind inconveniencing you with their calls and even lying when it suits their purpose. These scumbags deserve what you give them. Following this simple program will make your life a little more peaceful. If you don’t live alone, make sure other members of your family follow this program as well.

Learn to Say “No” This is very basic, and is the heart of any fraud survival program. The fraud artist, as well as the legiti-

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mate salesperson, will use any kind of pressure he can to get you to say “yes.” However, remember that the fraud artist needs your cooperation, and this means that you’re the one in control. Use this power to protect your interests. Say “NO!” if anyone telephones you and asks you for your credit card numbers, their expiration dates, passwords, PIN numbers, bank account numbers, or any personal or financial information. There is no

reason for a legitimate company or bank to ask you for this information by phone. Also be wary of anyone telephoning you as part of a survey. You might be good-natured and want to be helpful, but remember that you’re not obligated to help any stranger who telephones you. Also remember that you have only this person’s word for it that the call relates to a legitimate survey, and that this might be a fraudster trying to obtain information from you for a scam. It also might be a cleverly convoluted sales call, with the “survey” used as a lead-in to a sales pitch once the caller has your attention. If you really want to take part in the survey, ask for a call-back number. If it’s a legitimate survey, the caller will have no objection to providing you with a number. Another aspect of saying “No” is handling charity solicitations or other fund-raising appeals. Fundraising has become a science in the United States today, and much fund-raising comes from computers that generate personalized letters. This is the sort of junk mail that crams your mailbox day after day, and

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it takes time to sort the junk from the mail you really want to read. Fund-raisers are adept at writing appealing letters, and they know that a certain percentage of people will respond to them. As with telephone solicitors, they won't go away if you try to appease them by sending a token amount. Most national organizations and charities send out fund-raising letters, first to their members, then to people on carefully selected mailing lists. Whether it’s the National Rifle Association, the Republican Party, or some other organization, they operate pretty much the same way. , Some are more aggressive than others. Today, many fund-raising letters are disguised as “surveys,” asking your opinion on a hot emotional issue such as abortion or gun control. When you get to the bottom of the survey form you find the “hook,” a space asking you to list the amount of money you're sending to support the campaign. If you send in a check, your name goes on a special list, and you'll find them pestering you for contributions more often. Send in another check, and you'll be hit by a barrage of fund-raising letters, and some of them might be from other organizations as well. If your name goes on a special “sucker list,” distributed to other fund-raisers, you'll find your mailbox increasingly crammed with this sort of junk mail. One retired university professor complained about the number of fund-raising letters that filled his mailbox. He sends contributions to about 80 charities a year, yet each day receives more appeals. The answer

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was very simple. Some charities stated frankly, “The

more we ask, the more people give.”6 There is only one defense against a barrage of fundraising letters. Never ever send in a contribution in response to any sort of appeal. Ignore fund-raising letters and you'll find that after a while the fund-raisers will begin to ignore you. Most of today’s fund-raising letters are computer-generated, using a word processing feature called “mail-merge,” that prints a personalized letter to everyone on a mailing list. Their computers are programmed to send out letters to everyone on the list, but to flag those who respond. After several letters in a row get ignored, the frequency of mailings drops sharply. One active way to hurt these junk mailers is to open every envelope, looking for a business reply envelope.

The “BRE” is pre-printed, and states that the recipient (the junk mailer) will pay the postage. Stuff this BRE with the promotional literature or other printed matter you have handy and mail it back to the junk mailer. The first-class rate for a BRE is more than the price of a first-class stamp. As with junk callers, you hit them where it hurts.

Don’t Return Telephone Calls Blindly If you find a message on your answering machine from someone you don’t know, be careful about returning the call, as it might just be a come-on from a telemarketer. More seriously, it might be a costly scam if the number begins with the “809” area code.

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As we've already seen, scammers in the British Virgin Islands try to entice you to call their numbers so that they can hit. you with outrageous pay per minute charges, and they’re very imaginative at dreaming up pretexts.

Likewise if you receive an e-mail telling you that you've won a prize, landed a job, etc., and asking you to telephone a number beginning with “809.” If you find a number on your pager beginning with “809,” ignore it, because it’s sure to be a scam. Restrain your curiosity and save yourself a lot of money. In fact, it’s a good idea to look up an unfamiliar area code before dialing it. Area codes are listed by location in the telephone directory.

Expect Surprises Surprise is a basic tactic of the fraud artist. The scammer tries very hard to catch his victims unaware as he makes his play. The scammer will telephone you at home, or send you a letter. He may even approach you in person. In any event, he'll try to “hustle” you. This is why you must consider any offer or appeal very deliberately.

Don’t Be Hustled Make decisions deliberately, and don’t let anybody rush or hustle you. The scammer doesn’t want to give you time to think, to check up on him, or verify the validity of his offer. The fraud artist selling magnetic

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pillows and blankets to relieve arthritis pain will tell you that magnetic therapy is supported by doctors, but he won’t allow you time to check with your own doctor or to read about this therapy in medical books. He'll tell you that you must place your order right now to obtain the special price, and that the offer will expire at the end of the day. Delaying the buying decision is one of the most effective methods of frustrating a scammer. If a telemarketer makes an offer to you, ask him for a number at which you can call him back. If he’s legitimate, he'll have no reason to refuse.

Delay Tactics Use any excuse to delay the decision: “Tl have to ask my spouse. We always decide these things together.” This works even if you’re single because the caller doesn’t know your marital status. “IT want to run this by my accountant” (or lawyer). This is another way to postpone the decision, and it puts pressure on any scammer because he knows an accountant or a lawyer is more likely to see the fraud than a lay person. Yet another way is to take the time to look up the company or the offer on one of the Internet fraud sites listed in the chapter on “Resources.” This imposes a delay in the proceedings, and it provides you the opportunity to obtain a solid reading on whether the offer or the company is legitimate.

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“Can you send me literature on your offer?” Telling a caller or salesman you'd like to see it in writing is a powerful deterrent, especially if he’s dishonest. It imposes a delay of several days while the material comes to you through the mail. A scammer cannot stand a delay. Telling him firmly that you will not be rushed will often send him running, and this is a clear indication that the offer was not legitimate.

Use Your Common Sense Always remember that an offer that appears too good to be true usually is. People are not in business to give way fortunes or to do you favors. If someone offers you a sure-fire “secret” way to get rich on the stock market, ask yourself why he’s not using this secret to enrich himself, instead of wasting time trying to peddle it on the telephone. Likewise if you're approached by a telemarketer telling you that you’ve “won” a trip to Europe, a cruise, or a car. How can you expect to “win” in a contest you've never entered? The offer becomes very suspicious if the fraud artist tells you that you have to send him money to pay a “processing fee,” a tax, or another expense. Also be very careful with charitable contributions. Scam artists appeal to people’s better natures, and as weve seen, some are very agile in their quick response to events. The World Trade Center attack re-

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sulted in a rash of appeals by legitimate and fake charities. Never give money, or worse, your credit card number, in response to a telephone or e-mail appeal. It’s best to give any contributions to the local branch of your favorite charity. If in doubt about any charity, call the Federal Trade Commission at (877) 382-4357. Massachusetts law requires all charities and fundraisers to register with its Public Charities Division. This is a step towards making it harder for con artists to run charity scams in that state. Not all states have such requirements, which makes it very important to check out any charity several ways before contributing. The Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Web page of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a guide to precautions when considering charitable contributions. It advises obtaining lots of information from the charity, including where your money is going and how it will be used. It also advises asking for written materials about the charity, its purpose, and its finances. It’s also important to obtain the exact name, address, and telephone number of the organization. This is probably the most important step in distinguishing between legitimate charities and outright frauds because the fly-by-nights are reluctant to give out any identifying information. The Web site also cautions about similar-sounding names. Some fraud artists choose names that are very much like those of legitimate charities. It’s also important not to give cash contributions that could easily disappear into the pockets of the in-

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dividual fund-raisers. Pay by check made out to the organization or by credit card, if you’ve verified that the charity is legitimate. This creates a paper trail authorities can trace if the charity later turns out to have been fraudulent. It also prevents dishonest employees of the charity from expropriating funds for their own use.7

Ask For a Call-Back Number Tell a telephone caller that you’ll have to call him back, and ask him to provide you with a number where you may reach him. Also ask for the name and address of his company. Any legitimate caller will be able to provide these. The fakes will not, and this is a good way to send them running.

Credit Card Protection It used to be a truism to advise people to carry as little cash as possible to avoid losing it in case of robbery or losing one’s wallet. Years ago, robbers and pickpockets were not very interested in credit cards because they did not see the potential, and cash was their preferred booty. Today it’s very different, and one method of protecting your assets is to carry cash, not cards, in your wallet. A robber or pickpocket will get away only with the cash you have on you, and will not be able to loot your account for larger sums. If you absolutely must carry a credit card, keep it in another pocket, not in your wallet. Also, do not casually dis-

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card sales receipts if you use a credit card for a purchase. Receipts often contain all the information a fraud artist needs to charge items to your account, or even steal your identity. There’s another advantage of carrying cash only. Businessmen know that a person with a credit card is likely to spend more than if using cash. The credit card doesn’t seem like real money, and the credit card user knows that he won’t have to pay until the end of the billing period anyway. On the other hand, someone paying cash knows that he’s spending real money, and he’s paying it at the moment of sale. Handling cash brings home the reality of spending money. There’s another tactic available to you to reduce the amount a scammer might steal using your credit card: Ask for a lower credit limit. If you charge only $500 or

so each month,

you don’t need a $5,000 or $10,000

limit. A fringe benefit comes if you have a spouse who is a spendthrift and has a joint credit card account with you. A lower limit will prevent your spouse from delivering a nasty surprise with next month’s bill. Make sure you know the 800-number of your credit card company. It’s printed on your card, but make a copy of it in case your card disappears. If you lose your card, call the number at once whatever hour of the day or night it may be. They’re staffed 24/7 to take care of these problems, and can cancel your card immediately when you notify them of its theft or loss, or if you think someone else is running up bills on your account.® Remember that today’s credit card scammer doesn’t need physical possession of your credit card to charge

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purchases to you. This is why it’s important never to recite your credit card number and expiration date to anyone who telephones you, whoever he claims to be. Remember that on the phone, anyone can claim to be anyone else, including a bank officer, FBI agent, or police officer. A pleasant voice claiming to be from the “Credit Card Protection Bureau” is certainly a scammer if he or she asks you for your credit card numbers and their expiration dates. Don't go overboard on this, of course. If you initiate the call to a legitimate company that has a telephone order desk, it’s safe to provide the order-taker with your credit card number. Be careful only if you're not the one initiating the call. Some telescammers make seemingly irresistible offers to people on the telephone for the sole purpose of obtaining their credit card numbers and expiration dates. Don't buy anything with your credit card on the telephone if you're not the one who initiated the call. Better believe it!

Shred Personal Papers Don't throw bank account documents, old checks, credit statements, etc., into the garbage. Remember there are “dumpster divers” who can recover your financial statements and use them for theft of your identity. What do you do with old checkbook pads? You may have used up all the checks, but do you just throw away any unused deposit slips? If so, remember that

these too have your address

and checking account

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number, and this is as good as a check to an identity thief. All he has to do is to file a change of address order with the post office and send for more checks in your name. He'll then be able to write “paper” on your checking account. Also, shred any “pre-approved” credit card applications, as these too can provide lots of useful information to dumpster divers. If in doubt, shred it. Buy and use a shredder. A strip shredder is very inexpensive, and some sell for ten or twenty dollars at chain drugstores. A “cross-cut” shredder is much more secure than a strip shredder because it turns papers into confetti.

However,

a cross-cut

shredder

is also

somewhat more expensive and less reliable. Today a shredder is becoming as much of a fixture in American homes as a TV or stereo. Shredders, like digital cameras, are increasing in quality and reliability and their prices keep dropping. Most importantly, shredders are far less expensive than falling victim to dumpster divers and their accomplices.

Never Fill Out “Consumer Surveys” You may receive a thick envelope containing a questionnaire from a marketing company. The ostensible purpose of the questionnaire is to discover your preferences and tastes so that companies can make the products you like. At best, this is a trick to generate tightly focused mailing lists for junk mail. The result will be that

youll receive more junk mail than before. At worst,

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it’s to discover personal information about you that an identity theft artist can use to steal your identity. Of course, if you have a little time to spare, and want to expend a first class stamp to make life harder for junk mailers, fill out the questionnaire using a totally fake name and address. Make up your “facts” as you go along, positioning your imaginary character in an upper income bracket so that marketers will conclude that he has a lot of disposable income. Your first class stamp will cause a junk mailer to spend many times that before the returned mailings show him that the survey you filled out is bogus.

Don’t “Trust Your Instincts” The cliché, “trust your instincts,” has been around for years, copied by many writers in many different contexts, and has been offered as protection from menaces such as fraud, rape, and serial murder. It’s very bad advice, because a con artist is skilled at lulling his victims into complacency and a feeling of safety. Confidence men are called that because they know how to build a victim’s confidence, obtaining the victim’s trust so that they can scam him. Let’s digress for a paragraph to consider the tactics of one of the most successful serial killers in American history, Ted Bundy. Bundy’s victims weren’t stupid or especially credulous. However, they were vulnerable to someone of Bundy’s expertise. Bundy was good-looking and projected a sense of vulnerability through carefully planned tactics. He

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asked his victims to help and made sure he always cut. In one case, he wore helpless and handicapped, tim’s cautious attitudes.

him carry bags or bundles, appeared polite and cleana cast on his arm to appear using this to defeat his vicThey “trusted their in-

stincts,” and this led them to their doom. You can be sure that a con artist who tries to de-

fraud you will appear respectable, and will do everything he can to gain your confidence. He'll dress neatly,-be good-looking, shake your hand with a firm grip, and look you in the eye when he speaks. Salesmen, both honest and dishonest, know that the first step in making a sale is to get the buyer to like them: “You have to sell yourself before you can sell the product.” In some cases his position will inspire trust. As we've seen, some doctors are unethical, and they defraud their patients or the health insurance plan in various ways. Your doctor may try to razzle-dazzle you with medical jargon to persuade you to undergo unnecessary treatments, or he may bill your health insurer for treatments he does not deliver. Given this handicap, how do you protect yourself against these skilled deceivers? Instead of going by “instinct,” go by what you've learned of the ways con artists operate, and watch for behavioral cues. This means that you'll be able to articulate your reasons for being distrustful, instead of relying on a vague feeling of instinct. For example, if the scammer’s offer appears too good to be true, and he tries to hurry you, these are two excellent, easily defined reasons for being very careful.

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However likeable the con artist may be, certain of his tactics should appear like red flags to you. An unwillingness to provide a written contract or an address for his business, using technical jargon that’s hard to follow, and an effort to rush you into buying are all danger signals. If you have any doubt about the validity of the offer, take time out to think, and

lay out your reasons for doubt in your own mind.

Keep Aware of Your Finances Keep a mental checklist of when your bills and financial statements are due. This is especially true of credit card bills, because often they’re the first indication you have that someone is piggybacking on your account. Always scrutinize your credit card statement for charges you did not run up, and notify the company immediately if there’s a charge you don’t remember. If you’re convinced that someone has made fraudulent use of your credit card number, you can have it cancelled immediately. Be especially watchful if one month your monthly statement does not appear. Credit card con artists often file fake changes of addresses with credit card providers. This is to divert their victims’ statements to postpone the moment when the victim becomes aware that someone’s running up fraudulent charges on his card. If you have a curbside mailbox it’s very easy for a fraud artist to drive by and snatch your mail, then file a change of address on any accounts he intends to purloin.

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Also be careful if you’ve applied for a credit card and it doesn’t arrive. Check with the credit card provider. If it’s been mailed to you, chances are that a mail thief has snatched it from your mailbox. Of course, if all of your mail stops arriving, check with your local post office. You can disregard one piece of advice given by some security specialists: Send for a credit report on yourself every year. Supposedly this will reveal if someone has set up fake credit card accounts in your name. This is in reality almost useless, because of the interval involved. A fraud artist can have set up dozens of fake accounts and milked your actual accounts dry by the time the thefts show up on a credit report.

Safeguard Your Mail If you live in an older house and receive mail through a slot in your door, you're relatively safe. Likewise if your mail comes to a locked curbside mail station, with individual boxes for each residence. Both are less vulnerable than an ordinary curbside tin mailbox with a hinged end. The key word here is “relatively.” All mailboxes are vulnerable, even the official blue post office collection boxes outside your local post office. Remember that both your incoming and outgoing mail are open to theft. If you write a check, place it in an envelope, and leave it in your insecure curbside mailbox, a thief can drive by, flip down the lid, and

steal your envelope. Checks and other valuable per-

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sonal documents sent to you can suffer the same fate. This can become very serious with the plethora of unsolicited credit card applications sent out by greedy credit card providers. Theyre already filled in with your name and address, and a scam artist just has to add a few details, sign your name, and he receives a credit card in your name. Of course, he’ll file a change of address, so that the new

account statements don’t

show up in your box. The traditional ways of delivering mail are insecure in the face of the new wave of criminals. Mail thefts are too common to allow any complacency these days. The USPS Web site offers a clue regarding why. It advises citizens to file a form (PS Form 2016) with the Postal Inspectors if they see a mail theft. It goes on to say: “By analyzing information collected from this form, Postal Inspectors may determine whether your problem is isolated or part of a larger mail theft problem in your neighborhood — and it may help inspectors locate and apprehend the thieves.” In other words, calling the Postal Inspectors may help catch the perpetrators. Postal Inspectors will not rush to a mailbox theft. With only about 2,000 inspec-

tors for the entire country, and most of them tied up working child porn cases, they don’t have much time left to protect the U.S. Postal Service’s mailboxes. If you’re to protect your mail, you have to adopt other tactics, not necessarily the ones advocated by the U.S. Postal Service. An example of bad advice gleaned from the U.S. Postal Service’s Web site is

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this: “Never send cash in the mail. Use checks or money orders.” This is stupid advice, for the same reason discussed above in the paragraphs on credit cards. Of course you don’t want to lose cash, but it’s even worse if a thief obtains one of your checks. With this, he’ll have your account number and will be able to vacuum-clean your checking account before you know it. Although it’s more time-consuming to obtain, a money order is much less risky because the most you stand to lose is the amount of the money order, not the balance in your checking account. If you report the loss of the money order promptly, you may be able to recover the money, but at best this will take a long time. Take care when writing checks. Some mailbox thieves use a chemical solution to bleach the ink from a check, then make it out for a larger amount. Use a “gel” pen to defeat this. A gel pen’s ink stays in the paper, and will not wash off. A typical gel pen is the Sanford Uni-Ball Gel RT. There are other brands of gel pens, and they come in different colors. Now let’s look at how to safeguard your outgoing mail. Don’t leave anything valuable in a curbside mailbox, or even in a “security” mailbox in your housing complex. Bring it to the post office, and preferably drop it into a mail slot inside the post office building. Many post offices have curbside collection boxes, and these offer good security, but only during daylight hours. Today, it’s good practice not to deposit mail after the last collection of the day, because the boxes can be broken into during the night.

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Now let’s look at incoming mail. Make it your business to pick up your mail promptly, and don't leave it in the curbside box for several hours. If you're away at work during the day, you’re out of luck, unless you have a good neighbor who will Keep an eye out for your mail and pick it up promptly. If you go away on vacation, file an “Authorization to Hold Mail,” Form 8076, with your local post office. Likewise if you move. Be sure to file a change of address form with your local post office and notify your important correspondents early, before you make your move. As you can understand, incoming mail gathering in your mailbox is a liability. If your mail stops showing up, contact your local post office immediately to find out if someone’s filed a change of address form in your name. The key word here is “immediately.” Quick action can help Postal Inspectors locate the fraud artist when he receives your re-directed mail. More important is to close any accounts that may have been compromised. If you find that your mail’s been diverted, or that someone has stolen outgoing mail from your curbside mailbox, don’t wait for bogus checks to start appearing. Remember that prevention is better than taking action after you've been robbed. Add the total of outstanding checks that have not yet cleared. Then go immediately to your bank and transfer the surplus to a new account. This Keeps a check forger from looting all of your funds. It’s also good practice to keep only a small operating balance in your checking account. Checking accounts

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draw very little interest, and the balance is exposed to theft. As a rule of thumb, keep only enough money on hand in your checking account to pay one or two monthg’ bills. Keep the rest in other accounts. Consider renting a U.S. Postal Service mailbox inside a post office building. This keeps your mail in a safe place until you pick it up, and the chances of your incoming mail being purloined are tiny. The inconvenience is that you'll have to go pick up your mail instead of. having it delivered. Also, you'll have to pay a modest rental fee. This is an expense, but so are the locks on your doors, the bars on your windows, your alarm system, your safe, shredder, and any other security devices you have. A better way is to rent a mail box from a private mail receiving service, often called a “mail drop.” The post office will hate you for it, but you’re better off with a private service for several reasons. The official U.S. Postal Service post office accepts only U.S. mail, and will not accept any deliveries from United Parcel Service, Federal Express, or other private carriers. A private mail drop accepts UPS, Fedex, and any other delivery addressed to you. One drawback to private mail drops is that the post office discriminates against their clients. The post office will not accept a change of address form if you have a private mail drop, and you'll have to notify each of your correspondents individually if you move. However, this works in your favor if you receive a lot of junk mail, as most of it will not follow you to your new address.

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You may not receive mail every day, but you cannot telephone the post office to find out if there’s any mail waiting in your box. The post office is an arm of the government, and they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to. Private services will gladly tell you if anything has come in for you, because service is part of their business. Many older post offices shut up tightly after office hours. The more modern ones have lobbies accessible after business

hours, to allow mailbox

customers

ac-

cess. The modern mail drops, especially the chains and franchises with names such as “Mail ’N More” and “Mail Boxes Etc.” have this as a standard feature. You don’t have to rush from work to pick up your mail, but can do it any time with a lobby key. The latest “Mail Boxes Etc.” stores give each customer a proximity card to operate the door lock after hours without a key. You just hold your proximity card in front of an electronic box to unlock the door. Private mail drops also offer an array of other ser-

vices that the post office is now slowly copying to try to remain competitive. Private mail drops sell stamps, envelopes, packing materials, copy machine service, send and receive faxes and e-mails, and provide other services to their customers.

Safeguard Your Computer We've seen that some programs offered as downloads are actually scams. If you encounter one of these, you can get an early warning by carefully read-

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ing the “user agreement.” This lays out the conditions of use, something that many subscribers don’t bother reading. There are other ways to protect yourself. Don’t download programs you don’t know. Don’t allow your children to get on the Internet without your supervision, as some of these scammers (and others) prey on children. The variety of malicious programs sent out on the Internet grows every day. These are of various types, such as “worms,” “viruses,” etc. Some are designed to destroy data on your computer. Others are designed to scan your computer and retrieve the data on it, and send it to a recipient. Yet others are designed to replicate themselves and send copies out to everyone on your e-mail address list. Finally, some are relatively harmless, just practical jokes that place a funny message on your screen. Many are disguised as attachments to e-mail messages. Once you open the attachment, the malicious program infects your computer. Spam is a plague for some Internet users. Some spam is merely to induce you to buy something. Other spam messages are fraudulent. In any case, if you find your e-mail inbox flooded with spam, take a few steps to reduce the amount of spam you receive. A basic step that doesn’t cost you anything is to avoid posting messages on bulletin boards and discussion groups. Many spammers obtain an address list by scanning discussion groups, and if you leave your email address on one or more, you can expect to receive spam.

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If you must communicate via these discussion groups, set up a separate mailbox with a free private service, such as “Hotmail” or “Yahoo.” That way, any spam your posts generate will not go to your regular e-mail address. You may periodically clear out your alternate e-mail address, or if the volume becomes too great, abandon it altogether. There is another trick that some use to avoid getting spam. This is to insert extra letters into your email address when you post a message. Instead of [email protected], write [email protected]. This will keep a spammer who uses a program to sweep the posts for e-mail addresses from getting a useful address. Anything he sends you will come back to him as “undeliverable.” Meanwhile, you can insert a sentence into your post saying that if anyone wants to write you, to remove the “NOSPAM” from the address. Finally, never buy anything from a spammer, because spammers work the same way as junk mailers. If you respond to spam, this just puts you on a special list and you'll receive more spam than before. Consider signing up for a cable modem service, and disconnect your computer from the telephone line. This will absolutely prevent any stealth feature from running up astronomical telephone bills in your name. Another advantage of a cable modem is that the amount of spam you receive will drop sharply. Dial-up services seem to provide happy hunting grounds for spammers, but cable modem operators have very effective spam filters in their facilities. Cable modem

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services are expensive compared to those that provide dial-up service, but “you get what you pay for.” While we're on the topic of your computer, take a few simple steps to safeguard the information on your computer. Do not use your hard drive for any sensitive information, such as financial records, bank account numbers, etc. Keep these on a separate disk that you can store separately in a safe place. That way, if someone breaks in and steals your computer, all they'll get is the hardware. Don’t give them your bank accounts as a bonus. There’s another reason for storing sensitive information on separate disks. If your computer has an Internet connection, there are “Trojan Horse” programs that can scan your hard drive for information and send it to another computer connected to the Internet. Some fraud artists use this stratagem to obtain sensitive information without the victim’s knowledge. The “Trojan Horse” can scan only information that is physically in your computer. If you keep sensitive information on a separate disk, it’s out of reach. Of course, make sure that you remove any such disks when you log on to the Internet. As an extra security precaution, if you have two computers, use one for Internet contacts and the other for storing and processing sensitive financial information. The reason is that Internet scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. There’s a risk that a Trojan Horse program may lie dormant in your computer until you insert a floppy disk, whereupon it will scan that disk, copy the information from it, and squirt it to the scammer the next time you log on to

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the Net. Only a totally separate computer can prevent this type of clandestine program from infecting it and stealing your information. Be careful of information you find on the Internet. Don’t buy anything if your sole source of information about it is spam. Many Internet investment fraud artists use spam. Also be extremely careful of any information you pick up in financial chat rooms and bulletin boards. Some posts may be genuine, but in reality it’s hard to tell. Joe Ruffini, a noted information and computer security expert, says, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” You don’t know who posted that message ona bulletin board, so you have no way of knowing if the information is valid. Likewise, don’t enter into any deal with someone who remains anonymous. You don’t know whom that person might be, so always ask for identity verification before you even consider a deal. Obtain a name, not a “handle,” ask for an address and a phone number. Then check him out, and make sure he’s valid. One way, not always reliable, is to call the Better Business Bureau. The problem with the BBB is that many of the sellers are in far away places, and the local BBB is unlikely to provide information about them. Another major problem with the Better Business Bureau is that fraudulent businesses relocate often, get new telephone numbers, and it’s hard to keep track of them. By the time complaints begin piling up, the information is obsolete. “You cannot assume that an absence of complaints means the offer is legiti-

Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself 155

mate,” says Bob Whitelaw, President of the Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus.? Government sources are also limited. Although the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, and the FBI are involved in tracking down and prosecuting scam artists, none of these maintain lists of legitimate and fraudulent telemarketers or other sellers. In short, you’re often on your own. Be especially careful if the person is using a free email service. Fraud artists know that it’s hardest to trace them through such a free service, because they can log on using any name they wish, and nobody will check them out before setting up the free e-mail account.

Charitable Contributions We've seen that many “charities” are outright scams, and that even “legitimate” charities are not all they seem because not all of your money goes to the ostensible purpose. Some “legitimate” charities are cooking their books so flagrantly that they've been the subjects of a Congressional investigation. What, then, can you do if you want to use some of your spare cash to help people? First, forget about tax deductions. If your purpose is to help people, don’t worry about whether you can deduct the contribution on your income tax form. Charities had lobbied Congress to obtain tax-deductible status to induce people to give more freely. It’s only a gimmick.

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If you really want to help people with your spare income, consider direct help. Run your own private charity. There are people at work or near where you live who are facing hard times. Consider mailing them cash anonymously, in a tightly sealed envelope. Another way to do it is to scan your local newspaper for listings of needy people. Some newspapers run articles on needy families just before Christmas, and urge readers to donate directly to them. Unlike conventional charities, these newspapers absorb the overhead, and do not deduct anything for expenses. One contributor contacted the newspaper and accompanied the mother of a needy family on a shopping trip to buy essentials for her children. Finally, small local charities run only by volunteers are another choice. A local organization is more responsible, and it does not have the multi-million dollar overheads that large national organizations have.

Missing Checks or Cards If worse comes to worst, and you lose your wallet, or your home gets burglarized, or your mail is stolen, there are a couple of steps to take immediately. Speed is important, because these thieves act quickly to make their fraudulent purchases before the victim can react.

Notify police immediately, but only if you have reason to believe that they can apprehend the perpetrator immediately. If you have seen the thief drive away in a vehicle and you've copied the number, this infor-

Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself 157

mation can help police to run him down within minutes, given a little luck.

On the other hand,

if the

break-in took place hours ago, and there are no witnesses, or if you lost your wallet hours ago, notifying police no longer has the same urgency. By all means call the cops, but there are a couple of high priority actions you must carry out immediately. First, if your checks or material relating to your checking or other bank account have been stolen, call your bank immediately. Keep your bank’s 24-hour number handy, just in case. If your credit cards are missing, call the credit card issuers immediately to have the cards deactivated. Copy the toll-free numbers off your cards and keep them in your notebook, keep a copy in your desk, and yet another copy in a suitcase if you're traveling. Copying the numbers takes only a few minutes, but can save you hours of grief. Finally, call the three major credit reporting companies to place a “fraud alert” on your cards. This will prevent a thief from opening a new account in your name, using the information on your credit cards. The toll-free numbers for the three major credit bureaus are:

Equifax: Experian: Trans Union:

(800) 525-6285 (800) 301-7195 (800) 680-7289

Also be aware that the Social Security Administration has a fraud reporting number, and this will be important to you if you’re on Social Security and your check has been stolen. The number is: (800) 269-0271.

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After you’ve taken care of these high-priority items, call the police. The reason is to generate a police report to substantiate your claim of having been burglarized. If you're lucky enough to live in a locale where the police come to your home or office to investigate a burglary, ask the officer for the case number and a copy of the police report. Be aware, though, that in many areas police no longer come to take burglary reports. You'll get shunted to a clerk who will take your report over the phone. Make sure to ask for a case number, and ask how you may obtain a copy of the police report. Remember that government organizations are often slow, and you may not receive a copy right away. You might be able to speed up the process by offering to come to pick up a copy of the report. There may be a fee involved, perhaps a dollar or two for each page. If you intend to make a claim to your insurance company, a copy of the police report is essential, because the police report substantiates your claim of having been victimized. This is why you should stop at a copy shop on the way home and make at least a dozen copies. You’ll need one for your insurance company, bank, credit card providers, and others.

On a larger scale, what can you do? We’ve seen how and why the police are not very effective, and why lack of international cooperation hampers enforcement. Let’s look next at possible ways to improve the picture.

Chapter Ten Protecting Yourself 159

Notes . Beware of Unexpected Charges for Buyers Clubs, Press Release, National Consumers League, July 25, 2000. . Rayburn, Rosalie, “Taking ‘No’ For An Answer,” Albuquerque Journal, Business Outlook, October 472001, p. 1. Rayburn, Rosalie, “Qwest Customers Say Wireless Trial Offer Is Misleading,” Albuquerque Journal, Business Outlook, October 4, 2001, p. 7. Smith, Brendan, “Pair Sues MCI Over Message,” Albuquerque Journal, September 27, 2001, p. Al. Ibid. www.guidestar.com/news/features/direct_mail.htm www.state.ma.us/consumer/new/beforeyougive.htm Daniels, Dave, Certified Communications Security ONCOND Professional, Credit Card and Identity Fraud Scams, p. 1. http://www.bbb.org/alerts/sweepstakes.asp

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Chapter Eleven Possible Remedies 161

Chapter Eleven Possible Remedies

As we’ve seen, fraud in the new century is pervasive and profitable. Because of the tremendous amounts of money fraud artists can gain with little risk, fraud has become international in scope. Fraud used to be a cottage industry in the “good old days” before we were born. Individual practitioners built reputations based on their ingenuity and guile. Today, the picture has reversed, and fraud is often an international enterprise. By contrast, the police agencies to which most people turn for help are the cottage industries, because of their limited jurisdictions. What, therefore, are the possible steps we can use to cope effectively with fraud artists? The key word in this question is “effectively,” because lazy and incompetent legislators and other politicians are fond of “feel-good” laws, to make the citizens feel better under the illusion that the problems are under control. Ineffective laws aren’t worth the paper on which they’re

Modern

Frauds and Con Games

162

printed, and most legislative paper’s only real use is in the toilet. Likewise, laws not effectively enforced are worthless. There’s no point in passing severe legislation if the perpetrators remain out of reach in other states or countries. Similarly, the best laws are useless if the police don’t have the will, the means, or the support to enforce the laws. As an example of the difficulties involved in multiagency efforts, consider the Puget Sound area, which has experienced a large increase in mail and identity thefts during the last couple of years. A corresponding increase in meth lab busts has also occurred. Why has the problem become so severe? The King County, Washington area is not exactly devoid of law enforcement officers. Among the agencies cooperating on the twin problems are the U.S. and Washington Attorney’s Offices, the Postal Inspection Service, the King County Sheriffs Drug Enforcement Unit, the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, etc. However, a King County detective stated that it’s going to take more than meetings.! Meanwhile,

the thefts continue to increase. This is

typical of what happens when fragmented American law enforcement agencies try to cooperate. High-level officials hold meetings, and produce letters of understanding and These are mere complish much vere instances,

delegations of responsibilities, bureaucratic maneuvers that don’t but look good in the headlines. In legislators may get into the act and

etc. ac-

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Chapter Eleven Possible Remedies 163

troduce “feel-good” laws that address the problem but don’t contribute to its solution.

Federal Law Enforcement The U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, and other federal agencies have staff assigned to the fraud problem. These try to run down fraud artists with varying degrees of effectiveness. Let’s look at a couple of operations the Department of Justice ran during the 1990s and see how effective they were. The Department of Justice announced “Operation Disconnect” on March 4, 1993. The FBI did the grunt work during this undercover operation, pretending to sell a machine that would enable telescammers to dial 12,000 calls an hour. As they pretended to be explaining the operation of the machine to telemarketers, FBI agents working undercover asked them many questions about their operations, on the pretext that this information was necessary to tailor the machine to their use. By this means, FBI agents obtained many damaging admissions for use in prosecutions. The net result was that the Department of Justice was able to prosecute 700 scammers, some receiving sentences as high as 10 years in prison.” Another undercover FBI operation was “Senior Sentinel,” disclosed on December 7, 1995. Federal agents took over the telephones of people who had reported having been victimized multiple times, possibly because the telescammers kept records of vulnerable

Modern Frauds and Con Games

164

people, and posed as the victims. Recording the conversations, they developed evidence of use in prosecutions. The result was that about 1,000 crooked telemarketers suffered prosecution, and some received prison sentences as high as 14 years.? The Department of Justice Web site does not provide a follow-up to these cases because the information provided is designed to put the Department of Justice in the best possible light. There is no discussion of how many convicted telescammers had their sentences reduced by parole, or how many won early release because valuable prison space was needed for other prisoners. Practical experience, however, shows us that despite these investigations and prosecutions during the first

half of the 1990s, telefraud has increased. Today, we are bombarded by more telemarketing calls than ever before, and a proportion of them are fraudulent. As we've seen several times in this book, nobody keeps central records of all the fraud cases. What is clear is that the much-vaunted federal prosecutions didn’t put much of a dent in fraud artists’ operations. Now that we’re in the early part of the 21st century, telefraud is proliferating. Telescammers are agile in ways that outclass conventional law enforcement. They not only relocate quickly to stay ahead of the cops, but they take advantage of opportunities very quickly. As we saw in an earlier chapter, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, resulted in telescammers piggybacking on the devastation to

Chapter Eleven Possible Remedies 165

bilk people of their money and, in certain cases, their identities.

Security Enhancements Another approach suggested is a technical one. There are many security safeguards in producing identity documents and credit cards that are hard to counterfeit. There are other means, such as digital signatures,

biometrics,

and

authentication.

The

Na-

tional Fraud Center has proposed “authentication” as the tool against identity theft. “Authentication” means verifying the identity of a party to a transaction by technical means. However, identity thieves have to date, managed to cope with every countermeasure.

Notes 1. Skolnik, Sam, “Meth Use Linked to Jump in ID, Mail Thefts,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 28,

2001. 2. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/telemarketing /doj.htm 3. Ibid.

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Chapter Twelve Our International Role 167

Chapter Twelve Our International Role

As the planet’s sole surviving super power, the United States has tremendous leverage to enforce an international program to combat fraud. The United States hands out favors, such as “most favored nation trading status” and various forms of foreign aid. Unfortunately, this country often doesn’t use its power. Evidence of this is the faltering “war on drugs,” where we let citizens of foreign nations export illegal drugs to the United States. Our various “drug czars” have given a lot of lip service to stopping the growth of illegal crops in foreign countries, and their importation, but have taken no effective action. We can call for, and pressure other countries to enter into treaties with teeth in them, to bite organized criminals hard. The first step is to eliminate sanctuaries for organized fraud artists. This is essential, because many of today’s fraud rings know that coopera-

tion between

different countries’ judicial systems is

Modern

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half-hearted, at best, and few criminals have to fear extradition. Canada is a good example. We’ve seen how many scammers operate north of the border with the confidence that they can get away with it forever. In 1997, law enforcement officials from both countries met to set up a joint effort to combat cross-border fraud. They set up several operations and made a number of recommendations to fight fraud. The Bi-National Telemarketing Fraud Group formed a part of the Canada-U.S. Cross-Border Crime Forum. The RCMP set up Project Colt in the eastern part of the country, and Project Emptor in Vancouver, British Columbia. Now, years after the agreement, we can evaluate the results. We still have telemarketing fraud, and it’s stronger than ever. Let’s look at a couple of reasons why: One recommendation adopted was Bill C-20, which among other things provides for denying telephone service to criminal organizations that have been convicted. While this looks good on paper, in practice it’s essential to apprehend and convict a criminal tele-

marketer to deny him service. Because theyre fast moving, they're hard to catch. Even after conviction, they can set up shop under another name and obtain telephone’ service. Other recommendations are vaguely worded, feel-good provisions that are basically ineffective. Treaties can also set up international task forces to combat multi-national fraud rings. This will give the phrase “the long arm of the law” real meaning. Teams

Chapter Twelve Our International Role 169

of experienced investigators authorized to operate across national boundaries can carry the investigations wherever they lead and apprehend the perpetrators.

A uniform penal code is also important, to ensure that fraud artists will not escape penalties by operating from a country with “slap on the wrist” sanctions. A severe difficulty is that many countries have laws prohibiting crimes within their borders, but using the country as a base for crimes in other countries is legal. As 4n example, practically every country has laws prohibiting the counterfeiting of its currency, but few ban the faking of other countries’ money. We see the same with long-distance telephone and Internet scams. Fraud rings operating across national boundaries are relatively safe, because they live in one country but defraud victims in another. Their country of residence does not have jurisdiction in the countries where the victims live, and law enforcement officials in the victims’ home states or countries do not have jurisdiction where the criminals have their base. One type of international treaty that is a step in the right direction is the Convention on Cybercrime, drafted by the European Committee on Crime Problems. This treaty would allow law enforcement to cross national boundaries, either virtually or physically, in pursuit of cyber-criminals. However, some self-styled “privacy advocates” have objected to the

proposed treaty’s ratification, claiming that it allows law enforcement too much latitude. More severe penalties for chronic offenders may help. It’s important to think of medical fraud artists

Modern

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as organized criminals, and to treat them the same way. In some countries, such as China, organized criminals receive the death penalty for economic crimes, and their organs are harvested for transplants. In the West, we’re squeamish about putting people to death for non-violent crimes, but it’s still possible to cope with these offenders. Long prison sentences are one answer. To be effective, sentences must

be real, not merely nominal figures degraded by parole, probation, or early release programs. Large fines must be part of the picture. We’ve seen that many frauds are carried out by “legitimate” corporations, and letting them know that criminal penalties will hit them in the bottom line will be effective. Right now, the worst that often happens is that a lower-level executive takes the blame, while top officers claim innocence and escape penalties. Multimillion dollar fines will make an impression that won't be forgotten, especially when they have an impact on executive bonuses.

Notes 1.

Piazza, Peter, “Cybercrime Treaty dora’s Box,” Security Management, Number 9, September 2001, p. 40.

Opens PanVolume 45,

Resources

Lee

Resources

Although you, personally, are the first line of defense against fraud, you can’t fight the problems alone. Apart from recognizing the warning signs of fraud and not allowing yourself to be a victim, reporting frauds to law enforcement agencies can help. Unfortunately, many law enforcement agencies are not geared to fighting fraud, and it’s important to pick the right one. Be prepared to get a run-around, as many agencies simply don’t know how to handle fraud cases. This is why you should record the numbers of several agencies that might be concerned, and telephone more than one. It’s usually not appropriate to call 911 for a nonemergency, such as reporting a fraud. Most police agencies have a non-emergency number. Look up the number of your local agency and write it here:

Modern Frauds and Con Games v2

Your state attorney general may have a special fraud division and it may be worth contacting this office. Look up this number and write it here:

A list of state attorneys general is available at the web site: http://www.naag.org/about/aglist.cfm The FBI also gets involved in certain types of frauds as well as other federal crimes. Write the number of the FBI’s local field office here: The FBI main number in Washington, DC, is: 202324-3000. The U.S. Postal Service’s Postal Inspectors have jurisdiction over identity thefts involving the mail. Look up the number of the nearest Postal Inspector and write it here The U.S. Secret Service handles computer crimes and identity theft, among other crimes, so look up the number of the nearest field office and write it here:

Social Security 800-269-0271

Administration

Equifax PO Box 105873 Atlanta, GA 39348-5873 Phone: 800-997-2493 Fraud line: 800-525-6285 Web site: www.equifax.com

Fraud

Hot

Line:

Resources

173

Experian Information Solutions (formerly TRW) PO Box 949 Allen, TX 75013-0949 Phone: 888-397-3742 Fraud Line: 800-301-7195 Web site: www.experian.com Trans Union PO Box 930

Springfield, PA 19064-0390 Phone; 800-916-8800 Fraud line: 800-680-7289 Web site: www.tuc.com

Better Business Bureau The Better Business Bureau offers information about some frauds, and some companies that have had judgments against them. The national web site also offers information regarding whether a particular

business is a member of the BBB. There are specific web pages devoted to some fraudulent practices. The BBB’s web site is: http://www.bbb.org/ U.S. Department of Justice The U.S. Department of Justice has a fraud section, and several operations aimed at frauds. For example, Operation Disconnect and Operation Senior Sentinel resulted in federal criminal charges against more than 1,300 telescammers.

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/telemarketing/do} -htm

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174

However, we must be realistic. Telemarketing fraud artists are still out there. Federal prosecution doesn’t appear to have cramped their style. Federal prosecutors can ask for severe penalties, such as five years’ imprisonment, but only if the scammers are caught. You can get some information at the DOJ Web site: http://www.usdoj.gov/ To report specific frauds, call the FBI. Web site: www.fbi.gov Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission serves to regulate trade and to fight economic crimes. Among its projects are a section devoted to identity theft. The FTC maintains a regularly updated Web site on identity theft:

Web site: http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft Federal Trade Commission Fraud Line: 877IDTHEFT (877-438-4338) The FTC also answers questions and accepts complaints regarding consumer fraud, including telemarketing fraud. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Response Center: 877-382-4357 202-326-3128 Calling these numbers may help. At least, it will get the information into the pipeline and distributed to law enforcement agencies. Obviously, if a large number of complaints come in about a particular fraud scheme, there’s more likely to be an effort made than if only one or two complaints arrive.

Resources

175

Global Fraud Alert Global Fraud Alert is an advisory group formed by computer industry personnel to collect and disseminate information on frauds. Based in Australia and other Far East countries, Global Fraud Alert is one of a very few information networks that is truly international in coverage, as are many fraud artists. GFA operates a Web site to provide information on varieties of frauds committed in many countries and across national boundaries. Global Fraud Alert Level 50, 101 Collins Street Melbourne, 3000, Australia Phone: +613 96539647

Web site: www.globalfraudalert.com GuideStar GuideStar bills itself as “The National Database of Nonprofit Organizations.” Its database contains listings for more than 850,000 such groups, and a quick search feature that allows finding an organization with a keyword or title. The entries provide a quick profile of the organization, including its name, address, and financial picture. Web site: www.guidestar.com/

Healthcare Corporate Compliance Supersite HC Complianceinfo.com is the “Healthcare Corporate Compliance Supersite.” This Web site maintains information on compliance with health care regulations, mainly for the benefit of HMOs, hospitals, nursing care facilities, doctors, and other health care prac-

Modern

Frauds and Con Games

176

titioners. In reality, many problems are the result of ignorance or mistakes in billing, and this site provides information regarding federal and state regulations and how to comply with them. The practical reason is that the paperwork involved in billing can be bewildering, and a mistake can result in an investigation in the same way that a deliberate fraud can. For the typical health care consumer, this site also provides information on legal actions, including criminal prosecutions of doctors and institutions that fall on the wrong side of the law. A subsection titled “Entire News Archive” provides names and dates of regulatory and criminal actions relating to fraud and possible fraud. A weekly newsletter, Compliance Monitor, provides accounts of the latest events that often do not appear in the regular news media. The address is: HCPro 200 Hoods Lane Marblehead, MA 01945 Phone: 800-650-6787

Fax: 781-639-7857 Web site: www.complianceinfo.com National Consumers League National Consumers League is a consumer advocacy organization that warns consumers about frauds and other items of interest. Web site: www.ncinet.org

Resources

LT,

National Fraud Information Center National Fraud Information Center is operated by Trans Union Corp, one of the big three credit reporting bureaus. Its purpose is to spread information about the latest trends in frauds among the financial services, the insurance

industry, consumers,

and the

casino industries. Phone: 800-876-7060 Web site: www.fraud.org/welmes.htm U.S. Postal Inspection Service The Postal Inspectors provide information about postal frauds, and you can file a complaint with them. The Web site also has a checklist of how to check out a charity with which youre unfamiliar. Web site: www.usps.gov/depart/inspect U.S. Secret Service The U.S. Secret Service is one of the best of the federal law enforcement agencies, and has a Financial Crimes Division. The Secret Service originally had the job of combating counterfeiting of money. More recently it was assigned to protect the U.S. President and other government officials. Another area of responsibility is combating certain types of fraud, such as the Nigerian scams and computer fraud. The address is: 950 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Phone: 202-406-5850 Fax: 202-406-5031

Modern

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Web site: E-mail: 419

www.treas.gov/usss ted@usss. treas.gov

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The SEC provides information about securities frauds. You can also file a complaint if you think you've been defrauded. The site has a wealth of information to use in checking out any company offering stock. The home page has a heading, “Regulatory Actien,” and this provides a listing of actions taken against individuals and companies. Check this out before investing. Another heading, “Litigation,” covers trading suspensions, administrative proceedings, and other actions taken against people and companies in

the financial world. Web site: www.sec.gov Verizon Verizon Phone Fraud Alliance is a Web site operated by this wireless provider to document the latest

telephone

fraud

scams,

from

identity-theft

related

cons to holiday scams. Members of the Phone Fraud Aliiance include several telephone companies, such as Pacific Bell, Southwestern Bell, ete. Verizon makes

the information available to consumers and regularly updates the Web site. www. bellatlantic.com/security/fraud/index.htm

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Modern Frauds and Con Games by Tony Lesce Fraud is the fastest growing industry in the world, which is why it’s become a global trillion-dollar problem. The main reason is that it’s low-risk compared to other crimes. Overall, the apprehension rate is about three percent and the conviction rate is about one percent. The simple fact is that new and menacing techniques of fraud spring up almost every day. This volume describes dozens of frauds, many of which are not even illegal, but do involve deception for economic gain. This book will shed light on the new frauds and con games, with an extensive chapter on steps you can take to reduce your vulnerability to fraud. No book on fraud can be the final word, but this will help you protect yourself and your family. Chapters include: e Medical Fraud e Internet Fraude Identity Theft e Charity Frauds e Airline Security Scams e Possible Remedies e and much, much more.

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